Spin dynamics of counterrotating Kitaev spirals via duality

Abstract

Incommensurate spiral order is a common occurrence in frustrated magnetic insulators. Typically, all magnetic moments rotate uniformly, through the same wavevector. However the honeycomb iridates family Li2IrO3 shows an incommensurate order where spirals on neighboring sublattices are counter-rotating, giving each moment a different local environment. Theoretically describing its spin dynamics has remained a challenge: the Kitaev interactions proposed to stabilize this state, which arise from strong spin-orbit effects, induce magnon umklapp scattering processes in spin-wave theory. Here we propose an approach via a (Klein) duality transformation into a conventional spiral of a frustrated Heisenberg model, allowing a direct derivation of the dynamical structure factor. We analyze both Kitaev and Dzyaloshinskii-Moriya based models, both of which can stabilize counterrotating spirals, but with different spin dynamics, and we propose experimental tests to identify the origin of counterrotation.

4 pages, 3 figures; appendix 5 pages, 2 figures

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Cited by in corpus (12)

• Physics of the Kitaev model: fractionalization, dynamical correlations, and material connections
• Probing $\alpha$-RuCl${}_3$ Beyond Magnetic Order: Effects of Temperature and Magnetic Field
• The Heart of Entanglement: Chiral, Nematic, and Incommensurate Phases in the Kitaev-Gamma Ladder in a Field
• Magnetic structure and excitation spectrum of the hyperhoneycomb Kitaev magnet $\beta$-Li${}_2$IrO${}_3$
• Spin dynamics and field-induced magnetic phase transition in the honeycomb Kitaev magnet $\alpha$-Li${}_2$IrO${}_3$
• SU(4)-symmetric spin-orbital liquids on the hyperhoneycomb lattice
• Counter-rotating spiral order in three dimensional iridates: signature of hidden symmetry in Kitaev-$\Gamma$ model
• Extent of frustration in the classical Kitaev-$\Gamma$ model via bond anisotropy
• The Saga of $\alpha$-RuCl${}_3$: Parameters, Models, and Phase Diagrams
• Counterroating incommensurate magnetic order and strong quantum fluctuations in the honeycomb layers of $\mathrm{NaN}{\mathrm{i}}_2\mathrm{Bi}{\mathrm{O}}_6$
• Phase diagram of weakly coupled Heisenberg spin chains subject to a uniform Dzyaloshinskii-Moriya interaction
• Kernel Polynomial Method for Linear Spin Wave Theory